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La Fontaine, Rosella Johnson, 2010 April 19

Biographical / Historical

Rosella Johnson La Fontaine was born in Brooklyn in 1934 and raised in homes on Adelphi
Street and on Grand Avenue in the Clinton Hill neighborhood. Her mother was a Virgin
Islands national and her father came from Nice, France. In the early 1950s, her family
settled in a large house on Park Place at New York Avenue in the Crown Heights neighborhood.
La Fontaine campaigned to save the nearby Brooklyn Children's Museum in the late 1960s
and '70s and has been a community activist and a champion of community activism. Her
home was given landmark status in 2011. La Fontaine died in 2015.

Scope and Contents

In the interview, La Fontaine gives some brief background on her family's residences
in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Clinton Hill. She shares her in-depth knowledge of
the surrounding buildings and her own home. La Fontaine reflects on the efforts to
save the Brooklyn Children's Museum from leaving or closing after challenges from
fire and city government intervention. She discusses the area churches and important
community leaders such as Reverend Clarence Norman, Sr., Dr. Adrian Edwards, former
Assemblyman Karim Camara, Dianne Davis of Garden of Learning Day Care, Ora Abdur-Razzaq,
founder and principal of the Cush Campus Schools, and an unheralded citizen, Annie
Mae Hearston. La Fontaine returns to describing the architecture of her home and recalls
her parents' search for the home. Interview conducted by Monica Parfait, Ansie Montilus
and Alex Kelly.

Conditions Governing Access and Use

Access to the interview is available onsite at the Brooklyn Historical Society's Othmer
Library. Use of the oral histories other than for private study, scholarship, or research
requires the permission of BHS. For assistance, contact library@brooklynhistory.org.